Classic Monday: The Borrowers

The Borrowers, by Mary Norton, is about tiny people, no bigger than dollhouse dolls, who "borrow" from the Human Beans. In fact, they're sure that the Human Beans are put on the earth simply to provide for borrowers. But the borrowers in this novel have fallen on hard times -- all the many little folk who used to live in the great country house have had to leave (or 'emigrate,' as one of them puts it) either for lack of food to borrow or because the worst of all fates has befallen them: they've been 'seen.'

All that's left are Pod, his wife Homily, and their daughter Arietty. They manage to eke out a living on scraps from the kitchen and other things they scavenge from the rest of the house, all the while avoiding the Human Beans. Until one day when Pod, on a borrowing mission upstairs, is 'seen' by an unexpected house guest -- a boy, the owner's nephew, who has been sent into the country to recuperate from an illness.

Fearful that their lives will be up-ended beyond recall, Pod and Homily finally tell Arietty, who is 12, about borrowing, the Human Beans, the whole world above their little hidey-hole under the floor in the kitchen. Arietty, tired of living underground where it's always dark, begs to be allowed to go borrowing. Her parents at first refuse: girls don't borrow (the story, after all, takes place at the end of the Victorian period), but finally they relent because, they realize, if anything were to happen to them, Arietty would be quite alone and unable to take care of herself.

On her first foray into the world upstairs, Arietty is herself 'seen' by the same boy, and far from being afraid, she is emboldened and even more curious. What follows is the story of how their relationship does turn everything topsy-turvy and nearly costs the Borrowers their lives.

There is an implication in the book that some of the Human Beans over indulge in alcohol -- this is how they explain away the sightings of the little people. It's glancingly handled, and went right over my 8 year old's head, but it's there. Most of the characters who are supposed to be drinking too heavily (and thus seeing tiny people where they shouldn't) are fairly unappealing people -- an their supposed drinking is also treated as a failing, not glorified in any way.

This is a great book for a read-aloud. The language is a little more formal than kids will be used to -- a product of an earlier era, but easy enough for an adult to navigate. Books like this really tune the ear do different rhythms and expose children to different syntax (word order) and sentence structures, all of which build cultural capital which will be important as they move up the grades.

More than that, it's a great story. If your child loved The Littles chapter book series, or has a thing for fairies, give this one a try. Much of the tiny-creature appeal is here as well, but on a more sophisticated level.

Classic Monday: How to Eat Fried Worms

How to Eat Fried Worms, by Thomas Rockwell, was first published in 1953. You might think that a book this old just wouldn't translate well for modern kids, but the premise -- a bet between some boys that one of them will eat fifteen worms in fifteen days -- possesses just enough of that gross-out factor to still be attractive to kids everywhere.

Billy accepts the challenge from his friends Joe and Alan. On the line is Alan's savings -- $50. Most of the book is consumed with Billy eating worms and Alan and Joe trying to trick or otherwise prevent him from doing it so they won't lose the bet.

This isn't a long book, only about 145 pages, and in some ways not a lot happens. A full chapter is devoted to the first worm Billy manages to eat, and it's mainly description of him chewing and swallowing with great determination. Other chapters are similarly devoted to Alan and Joe's tactics -- sometimes straightforward, sometimes underhanded -- as they try to keep Billy from eating his worms. Worms are boiled, fried, slathered in horseradish sauce, buried in ice cream -- whatever necessary for Billy to get them down. And he can't just swallow them: he has to chew them up.

I read this one aloud to my 6 year old about a month ago and he really liked it. Our edition had the original illustrations in it, line drawings of some of the events, and that helped him stay on track with the story. He was particularly fascinated with the idea of eating the worms and we talked quite a bit about whether or not we would be willing to eat a worm to win a bet, what we'd need to put on it to eat it, how it should be cooked, etc. It's revolting stuff like this that just reels boys in and my kid was no exception.

This one worked well as a read-aloud, although Rockwell sometimes tends to write in loose fragmentary sentences that can get kind of confusing as you're reading along. I probably wouldn't go much younger than 6 for read aloud. Accelerated reader puts this one at a 3.5 for grade level and that seems about right for independent reading. It is a book often recommended for boys since all the characters are boys and the subject matter is one that appeals to boys, but my 8 year old daughter read it last summer and liked it too. There's no swearing, no violence, nobody gets killed or blown up and yet it's still a good book. Go figure.

Classic Monday: Nate the Great

"I, Nate the Great,

am a detective.

This morning I was a cold detective.

I was standing in the snow

with my dog, Sludge,

building a snow dog

and a snow detective.

They looked like Sludge and me.

They were cold and white and wet.

And so were we."

Nate the Great and the Snowy Trail

You gotta love Nate the Great: his hard-boiled monologue, his love of pancakes, his determination to solve the case. He's been around for nearly 40 years and still stands as a classic chapter book for readers beginning to read independently.


Kids today aren't going to get the Joe Friday tone to Nate's speech, the short, clipped sentences, the just-the-facts-ma'am attitude, but parents who grew up on Dragnet re-runs or have caught them on cable will recognize the similarity.


Line lengths are short, but there are quite a few per page. Often an entire page is covered in text. The stories are accessible, always involving other kids and their mysteries. The stories offer the opportunity to stop and predict what might happen -- a good higher-order thinking skill. The books are usually under 50 pages.


Lots of sight words here, and lots of repeated words, mainly because of how Nate talks. The repetition is nice for early readers because they get practice with the same words. However, this repetition makes them not a good choice for reading aloud -- you, the parent, will find yourself getting either a little bored with or annoyed by the text -- wonderful practice, but a slow read for competent readers.




There are about 25 books in Marjorie Sharmat's series, though several since the 1990s have been co-written with Craig or Mitchell Sharmat, who are presumably her sons. Nate the Great remains a good choice for beginning readers.

Classic Monday: Caddie Woodlawn

Some stories from my childhood stand out very clearly from the huge mass of literature I absorbed between 2nd and 12th grade. Caddie Woodlawn, by Carol Ryrie Brink, is one that sparkles in my memory.

Often the books we loved don't always survive the test of an adult reading, but Caddie leapt from the pages as fresh and spirited as she was when I first read her 30 years ago (and yes, just writing that makes me cringe -- 30 years!) I liked Laura Ingalls, but I wanted to be Caddie.

Her life was so much more exciting than mine, running wild as she did all over the woods of Wisconsin with her brothers. I envied her the thrill of riding through the night to warn the Indian village of an impending attack -- I envied her all the adventures she and her brothers cooked up. She was forever doing boy things instead of sitting at home sewing. Mind you, though I wasn't sitting home stitching samplers, I am old enough to remember when girls couldn't play little league (or a lot of other sports) and when we were shunted into home-ec classes whether we wanted to take them or not, so the theme of boy-destiny vs. girl-destiny was one I could relate to.

The language of Caddie Woodlawn is more complex than her sister books, the Little House on the Prairie series, so if you have a reader who loved Laura and Mary et al., this would be a good step up to extend vocabulary and comprehension. It's also a good one if your daughter likes the American Girl books, particularly if she likes Kirsten or Kaya, since the time periods are about the same. Caddie is somewhat more accessible than Little House, I think because there is less that needs to be explained to modern children (read a Little House book and you will find yourself explaining all sorts of things -- butter churns, sod houses, plowing, calico, nose-bags, etc.) But also because Caddie herself is more accessible. Her spunk, her fearlessness, her confusion as she tries to reconcile her tomboy ways with approaching womanhood is one that many girls can relate to, however many opportunities are available to them today. And everyone can relate to the incident with Cousin Annabelle's buttons -- who hasn't done something to be funny and ended up going a little too far?

Other nice touches are Caddie's relationship with her father and brothers and her emerging relationship with her younger sister Hetty and ultimately her mother. The choice her father must make -- whether to return to England and take up the inheritance he is entitled to or stay in America -- is another element that lends depth to the story as Caddie empathizes with her father's younger self. Her developing empathy for others is a theme of the book; in an earlier chapter she chooses to spend a treasured dollar on three little boys who have lost their mother. There is rich food for discussion here -- bigotry, fear of differentness, the nature of compassion, taking action to right a wrong, family relationships -- all are dealt with in these pages and provide wonderful opportunities to talk to your child (and build some critical thinking skills into the bargain).

I would suggest reading Caddie Woodlawn aloud to your child, unless she's a very strong reader. It is a touch slow starting, so it helps to have an adult read the first chapter or two (or even the whole book) to pick up the cadence and rhythm of Brink's writing. Children can always understand more difficult literature when it is read to them, and having more difficult books read to them lays the groundwork for reading such literature by themselves later on. I think there's enough adventure and boy-stuff here that boys would be okay with this book, but since the main character is a girl, it's a fair bet most boys will pass this one by. However, if you have a son and daughter who are close in age, this would make a good family read-aloud book, too.

Like Laura Ingalls Wilder, Caddie Woodlawn was a real person (she was Brink's grandmother) and her story is worth reading again today, both to see how the lives of girls in America have changed, and how at their most basic levels they have stayed the same.

Classic Monday -- Tuesday Edition: Good Night Gorilla

I'm telling you, Bookivore can. not. catch. a. break. We had another snow day yesterday, though this one was an early dismissal because of a completely unexpected blizzard. A BLIZZARD. How do you miss that, Mr. Weatherman? So I had a house full of kids, some mine, some who just wandered in from the bus stop, and once again got nothing done.

I'm moving to San Diego. I hear it's nice there. No blizzards.



Good Night Gorilla, by Peggy Rathman, has been around since the early 1990s and it has become a staple of the under-2 bookshelf. You can even still pick it up at Target, which is as big an indicator of its classic status as anything I can think of.


The story is one with only minimal words. The zookeeper is locking up the zoo for the night, and telling each animal "Good night," as he goes about his duties. The little gorilla, however, has taken his keys and is busily unlocking all the cages.

Eventually, the zookeeper arrives home with a parade of animals in tow. Everyone snuggles down in the zookeeper's bedroom, but once the lights are off Mrs. Zookeeper discovers the stowaways and firmly marches them all back to the zoo where they belong. All except the little gorilla, who slips back into the zookeeper's bedroom and falls asleep between the zookeeper and his wife.


It's a charming little book, beautifully illustrated with Rathman's brilliant paintings. If you're familiar with Rathman (Ruby the Copycat, 10 Minutes 'til Bedtime, Officer Buckle and Gloria) you'll know that her pictures always have more to them than meets the eye: in this book, children can spot the pink balloon that floats away on the first page. It reappears in subsequent pages. Also, on the last page a "family" portrait with Mr. and Mrs. Zookeeper and the little gorilla is finally completely revealed. He is obviously their spoiled darling.

This is an excellent book for pointing out what's happening in the pictures when your child is small and then later having your older child tell back to you what's going on in the story. It comes in a sturdy board book edition and also a larger "lap" edition. Along with other classics like Goodnight Moon or Time for Bed, it makes a great baby gift for new parents.

Pictures courtesy of Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com

Classic Monday, Now onThursday! (Or Why George and Martha Got a Little Sidetracked...)

Bookivore had every intention of posting on Monday, but Thursday and Friday of last week we got buried in snow. Then the kids were off for MLK's birthday, and then, after only ONE DAY back at school, we got covered with this:

Yes, that's ice.

So, we had yet another snow day. We're up to 5 now. It's looking like we'll be making up snow days until mid-June. Anyway, with all three of my children home, I have gotten precisely nothing done. Until today.

And George and Martha, by James Marshall, deserve my undivided attention.

These books have been around since the 70s and early 80s and they are family favorites around here. What's great about them is that they work on two levels: first as excellent read-aloud stories, and second as good books for early readers.

Two of the truly charming things about George and Martha are their friendship and the dry, witty humor that often underlies their activities. The writing is for children, but it's good children's writing: writing that doesn't talk down to them or over-simplify things. Kids get the humor in George and Martha.

Each book is divided in to 5 short stories, which qualifies them as "chapter books" on the same order as the Henry and Mudge books. Sometimes the stories are connected, but often they are not. In George and Martha:Back in Town, the story "The Big Scare" has George leaping out at Martha and shouting "Boo!" The startled and annoyed Martha warns him that she's going to scare him next. The rest of the story is George saying to himself, "Any minute now, Martha is going to scare the pants off me!" and looking for her in unlikely places, such as beneath the kitchen sink, where she patently would not fit. He spends the rest of the story in paranoid anticipation until Martha, calmly reading in her hammock, finally says, "Oh, I'm sorry --I forgot to scare you." The following story, "The Amusement Park," has George and Martha enjoying the roller coaster, the Ferris wheel and the bumper cars before finally taking a trip through the tunnel of love. THAT'S when Martha yells "BOO!" and George screams "Have Mercy!" Martha remarks, "I guess I didn't forget after all."

Sometimes their friendship is strained, as when George, the new lifeguard, has to give Martha a bawling out for misbehaving on the beach and she beans him with his megaphone. "This is a tough job," he says as she storms off.

Other times, they are quick to come to each other's rescue, as when George attempts to go off the high-dive and panics at the very top. "I'm coming!" shouts Martha (who earlier said you wouldn't catch her up there!). She climbs to the top and does a cannonball and in the huge splash that follows, George is able to get down without anyone seeing him or making fun of him.

Another favorite of ours is from One Fine Day. George decides in "The Icky Story," to tell an icky story while he and Martha are eating. "Have some consideration!" Martha says. But he tells it anyway. In revenge, Martha tells her own icky story and George is too grossed out to eat his dessert. "You win," says George. "Don't make me do it again," says Martha.

This is no sappy My Little Pony love, it's the portrait of a friendship between two imperfect characters who nonetheless love each other and are committed to taking care of each other.

There are 7 books in the series, as well as a new collection of early readers. I can't comment on those, but I would have my doubts about anything that played fast and loose with Marshall's excellent prose. Likewise it was made into a series for HBO, but since we are probably the only family in America without cable, I can't comment on that either, other than to say that cartoons based on really excellent books seldom capture the essence of what makes the books so good.

Read them to your preschoolers, then get your first and second graders to read them to you. Either way, they're getting a serving of great kids' literature.

Classic Monday: Encyclopedia Brown

Remember Encyclopedia Brown? The boy detective from the little town of Idaville where his father is Chief of Police and there's almost no crime, thanks to the superior sleuthing skills of one 10 year old boy? These were a staple of my childhood and now I'm discovering them all over again with my 3rd grader. They have definitely withstood the test of time.

In spite of being mainly written in the 60s and 70s, the books aren't so dated that kids can't relate to the characters and situations. For comparison, consider something like the Little House on the Prairie books, which require a lot of explanation of things like butter churns, boot blacking, soddies, etc.

If the books are a little dated, it's in the wholesomeness of the town of Idaville and its pre-teen protagonists. Instead of hurling swear words at each other that would make a trucker blush, these kids say stuff like "Nuts to you!" And they mean it, dang it. In some ways, the books were ahead of their time. Encyclopedia's sidekick, Sally Kimball, is a strong, no-nonsense character who is a force to be reckoned with -- she's not just riding on Encyclopedia's coat tails or providing a cooing, admiring audience for his skills. Occasionally she, and not Encyclopedia, figures out the mystery.

The villains are bad, but not so bad -- no shopping mall shooters or child molesters here, just your garden-variety thieves and bullies. And of course, there's good old Bugs Meany, the teenaged would-be crime boss, were it not for Encyclopedia reining in his illegal (or morally questionable) activities. Encyclopedia himself is refreshingly modest, not wanting the general public to know that he assists his father in his investigations.

The books are compelling: each chapter is a mystery which Encyclopedia must solve. And he does, though to understand how he did it you must turn to the back of the book and read the solution. I remember quite clearly reading the answers when I was a kid and thinking "Oh, so that's how he knew!" Sometimes I could hardly wait to get through the mystery, I was so anxious to find out what Encyclopedia noticed that I didn't.

The language level of the books is good for 3rd or 4th grade. Accelerated Reader puts it at 4.1 or 4.2, which seems about right. Where their value lies, I think, is in their modelling of critical thinking and deductive reasoning. The books allow you to see what Encyclopedia Brown sees, then shows you how he deduced the solution from those clues.

Here's some interesting trivia: the author of the series, Donald J. Sobol, is still living (he's 85) and released a new Encyclopedia Brown book in 2007 (Encyclopedia Brown Cracks the Case). All of the books were re-released in paperback starting in 2007. Depending on which Wikipedia article you read, there are 25 or 26 volumes in the series, more than enough to keep your reader busy for a good, long while.

More trivia: when my 8-year old saw that I was posting about Enclyclopedia Brown, she did some spontaneous cartwheels in the family room and yelled "Yay! My favorite book series is on Bookivore!" So there's a ringing endorsement for you.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas

and all through the house

not a creature was stirring

not even a mouse.

We have read this one, in various incarnations, since my oldest was a tiny baby. Plug in the title as a search term on either Amazon or Barnes and Noble and you'll pull up hundreds of results. It's one of the most retold stories of Christmas ever, probably only second to the Nativity.

Today my baby and I went to the bookstore in search of a very late birthday gift for my sister and we got sidetracked in the children's section, looking at all the Christmas books that have been put on display for the season. What caught my eye was this great new interpretation of The Night Before Christmas by Rachel Isadora.

I was already familiar with Isadora's retelling of a number of fairy tales (Princess and the Pea, The Fisherman's Wife, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Hansel and Gretel), but every time I open one of her books, the energy of the paintings just blows me away.

Isadora's artwork is reminiscent of Eric Carle's, but she gives hers a more global flavor. This version has distinctly African characters and is in saturated color that leaps off the page. This is no Currier & Ives version of Moore's poem. It's gorgeous and thoroughly modern. Love it.

Also still around is one of our favorite artist's takes on this classic, Mary Englebreit's 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.

This one is vintage Englebreit, with cute-as-pie elves and mice and all manner of detail in every two-page spread. The pictures are playful, engaging and nostalgic. My littlest one requests this book year round. It's candy for the eyes.

Even more nostalgic, but in a completely different way, is Gennady Spirin's version.


This one is closer to what I'd call the "classic" interpretation; everything looks quaintly European and softly lit. Spirin's paintings always make me think of the renaissance masters, the way they play with light. He has many books which cover a range of Christmas songs and themes and they are all lovely. This one is of a caliber to leave out on your coffee table.

Last is Robert Sabuda's take on the Night Before Christmas; a high-contrast pop-up book, also suitable for the coffee table, if you have older kids. This one is NOT recommended if you have babies or toddlers, since it likely wouldn't survive the season.



It's strongly graphic and very cool, modern and yet retaining an element of the classic about it; I'm always reminded of traditional scherenschnitte pictures, though they're not really like that. Every time I look at this one, I think "How did he figure out how to do that?"

I love all of these and yet none of them is precisely like the edition I remember so fondly from my childhood. Sadly, that book is long gone and despite many long searches through the scads of other versions, I've never been able to locate that exact one. Still, I'm glad there are so many of this classic to choose from so my children, though with different "visions of sugarplums" dancing in their heads, will have the same fond memories.